Thursday, January 24, 2013

The last time I was back home in Idaho I hunted around mom's house to take photos of things that meant something to me. I was hoping that she still had a bracelet that I made for her when I was a child. I was happy when I found it in her jewelry box.

This bracelet was a second grade Mother's Day art project. I glued each of the pretty polished stones in place. To wrap them we stuffed pieces of cotton inside an empty toilet paper roll and then put the bracelet inside. Then we wrapped a couple of layers of tissue paper around the the roll and tied the ends with ribbon.

I remember that day well because it was also the last day that our teacher, Mrs. Jones, was going to be our teacher. She was moving away and I was really sad. I know I cried that day. She did too. Boy, did I miss her after she left! I did not care for the replacement teacher at all!

Mom used to wear the bracelet often. She even had to glue a couple of stones back on. Come to think of it, I glued a couple of the stones back on before I took the picture.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Sunday I was awarded the Liebster Blog Award by Diane from Nuts From the Family Tree. So what's this award all about? I will get to that in a minute.

I was doing a little genealogy blog hopping and I landed on this post from Caroline (one of my favorite genealogy peeps). It was loaded with a bunch of techno mumbo-jumbo about the downfalls of participating in blog awards. I'm not going to go into it, but you might want to check it out => Blog Awards & SEO.

Now, about this award, Liebster means dearest in German. I was curious so I did some googling around trying to find the origins of this award. I found a couple of bloggers who had done a more indepth search and if you are curious, go check them out:

Looking at different types of blogs that have received this award, the rules change from blog to blog. Did you ever play that game where you sit in a circle and whisper something into someone's ear and when the last person whispers it back into your ear it's totally not what you said? Same concept.

Here are the rules from Diane:

The premise behind this award is that when you are nominated, you are supposed to answer 11 questions about yourself (chosen by the person who nominated you), and then nominate 5 bloggers with less than 200 readers and provide 11 questions for them to answer.

I refuse to be threatened by Google (read Caroline's post) so I am going to participate because I think it is a fun way to get to know your genealogy peers, especially those who are just beginning to blog.

Here are the questions that Diane has asked:

1 - 5: Tell us five important things about how you got interested in genealogy and why you blog? I became interested in genealogy from my grandma Smedley. She had two genealogy books that I looked through every time I went to visit her. One was for her ancestors and one was for her descendants. She gave each of her grandchildren their own books. I used to hand copy pedigree sheets and family group sheets from her to put in my book.

I blog because I want to share what family information I have found or inherited with others who may desire the same information. I can't deny that I also blog in hopes of attracting distant cousins to share with me.

Do you watch TV and if so what are your favorite shows/ types of shows?My tv goes on at 2 p.m. every week day for General Hospital. I like all the CSI shows, NCIS, Bones, Criminal Minds, Warehouse 13, and American Idol. I absolutely HATE all other reality shows!

Please tell us about your journey of genealogy education? I learned the basics from grandma and field trips to the Family History Center. From there it's just hands on experience. I have often thought about taking classes to become certified. But then if I started doing other peoples research for a living, my own would suffer. Besides that, I can't afford to pay for schooling.

When you're not doing genealogy, what's your favorite thing to do? I'm an outdoorsy kind of girl. I love fishing, camping and hiking. I also love to go antiquing. Never know what you'll find.

Please share your pain: tell us about one of your brick walls and how long you've been working on it. I will refer you to this post => The Mysterious Alderman Pickett. Family tradition tells us that my 4th great-grandfather George Piggot was the son of Lord Mayor William Pickett. It's very hard to prove parentage of someone who claims to be disowned!

Has there been one person, web site, or class that was the most beneficial to you? I have to say no. Nothing stands out as being more beneficial.

What's the funniest story you can tell us about your interest in genealogy? I wish I had a funny story to tell, but alas, I don't.

Who are the five bloggers I choose? Well my blog reading hasn't been what it used to be so I can't base it on that. That goes for my blog posting as well. Heck, I haven't even been tweeting as much. Sometimes life gets in the way. You know, chores, hangin' with the family, and doing actual research. Okay I admit it, my Geni addiction doesn't help.

The five I am choosing are among the newest genealogy blogs. My way of saying "welcome to the community." and "I look forward to getting to know you".

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Where do I begin? Something happened this week that I felt I should share with you. This tip isn't necessarily just for genealogy, but anyone who has a social presence online.

We as genealogists love to get emails from potential cousins, right. That's why my email address is located on my blogs. As much as I love sharing research and getting to know cousins, I still expect a certain amount of privacy. You too, right?

For instance, I don't want my phone number or home address available online just for anyone (especially these days). That is to be given out at my discretion. Am I right?

I received an email from someone and before I had a chance to respond, I got a letter from this person in the mail (talk about impatient!). It wasn't genealogy related. Needless to say I was not too happy. Hubby wasn't too happy either! Imagine getting a letter from some guy we don't know.

He said he found my information on Whitepages.com. Well that got me fuming because our number is unlisted! So I checked and my number isn't listed, but the address was.

Some of you may be alright with your information out there, but for those who aren't you may want to go to the following sites and get yourself unlisted.

AnyWho.com - You will want to run a search for yourself. Click on your name to see the full listing and it will ask if that is you. Click on "remove listing" and follow the directions. The bummer is that you will have to register to remove your listing.

White pages - Same principle here. Once you find yourself and open the full listing click on the button that says "claim & edit". You will also have to register for this one.

Spokeo - I hadn't looked at this site for a while, but when I did it shocked me. When I searched for my name, it showed the satellite image of my house! It does hide parts of your phone number and address, but there are options to purchase the info. To remove yourself from here, just go to the bottom of the page and click on privacy and follow the directions.

Granted our public information is out there, but it shouldn't be that easy to get at right? (Unless of course you run a business and want to be found.) After all, I share this household with someone and I need to be respectful of their privacy as well.

If you can think of any other sites I need to remove myself from, please let me know.